


Tequila Sunrise

by MissFiction



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Stranger Things RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Alcohol, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Jealousy, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mutual Pining, Reader-Insert, Reader-Interactive, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFiction/pseuds/MissFiction
Summary: Jim Hopper encounters an office assistant he's been interested in at his favourite seedy bar and demands her attentions all to himself.





	Tequila Sunrise

It was uncommon for you to go anywhere but home after your work week, which is why it was such a surprise to Jim Hopper when he spotted you sitting at the counter in his favourite bar after his shift ended.

It was a late night for _him_ , which meant it was an absurdly late night for you. Furthermore, it is not one of the places he’s known you to spend your time. It was kind of a dive. Slightly seedy, with low-lighting and the ever-present scent of cigarette smoke permeating the air. In other words, as a young non-smoker it was not exactly your scene. While you certainly knew how to have a good time, he knew that after a long work week your Friday nights were usually reserved for some quiet alone time in your apartment, generally with a good book and a glass of wine, rather than out in some disreputable bar.

But there you were nonetheless, perched in a bar stool, Friday night relaxation be damned. Jim did his best not to stare, but his surprise made that difficult.

Despite being dressed to the nines, your posture reveals how tired you really are, which only adds to the mystery of why you were here. There was a gentle slope to your bare shoulders that hinted at your fatigue, but you also had both elbows on the bar counter and were leaning forward heavily. Even from his profile view of you from the doorway, where he had completely frozen in surprise when he realized it was _you_ sitting alone at the bar with the enraptured attention of one of the bartenders, he could see that your dress was extremely flattering. Emerald green swaths of flowing fabric that curled around your figure, displaying a significant amount of skin while remaining tasteful and classy. It was certainly one he had never seen you in before; he simultaneously wondered when you had acquired it, who you had come here wearing it for, and desperately wished that he could tear it off of you.

Hopper chastises himself quickly for that thought but failed to push down the waves of jealously that swell in his chest at the scene in front of him.

The bartender seemed to be thoroughly fixated on you, despite the fact that the counter was crowded. His coworkers were busily handing out orders just a little way down the bar. He appeared to be a relatively attractive young guy, and his interest was palpable. But what really got Hopper’s blood boiling was the way this guy kept reaching across the counter and laying his hand on your folded arms, the way he kept touching you. Eventually he turned away and started shuffling through bottles and pouring ingredients into a glass. Jim realized that this was going to be his best opportunity to approach and take your attention for himself.

There had been something of a dance going on between the two of you for quite some time now, where you spent a great deal of your time together, but nothing ever _really_ happened between you. Sometimes it seemed like the tension would be too much and he might finally give in to your flirting, but something always happened to diffuse the situation. Other times he would linger just a moment too long with you, and you would flinch and excuse yourself. It was painful for everyone around you to watch. He had a gruff demeanor and a rough exterior that kept people at a distance, but your calm personality found the softness in him and drew it out. Anyone who spent a moment of time with you both felt like it was only a matter of time before something had to give.

When you started your job working the reception desk at the station he had been incredibly stand-offish, but you slowly wore him down with your calming presence. You started to bring your lunch into his office to eat so you wouldn’t be disturbed by the public for your hour. Initially you wouldn’t say a single word so you wouldn’t disturb him, but you piqued his interest. Before long he became curious about the quiet young woman who would come sit in his office for an hour but leave him alone, and he began to chat. Eventually you started packing lunches for two, and the rest was history.

He enjoyed his time with you immensely, but he refused to make a move on you due to the belief that you were too young and too pretty to be held back by an old divorc _ **é**_ like him. While that was genuinely what he believed in his mind, it was still hard to convince his heart of the same as a ball of jealousy burned like hot coals in his chest in response to the way that young bartender guy kept raking his eyes over the sweetheart neckline of your dress. There was no reason for his fists to tighten the way they did in response to that heated gaze, and yet the swelling of envy remained unchecked when you offered soft smiles and averted your eyes shyly in response to some of the light touches that the insistent young man placed along your arm.

As Jim crossed the bar, angling for the vacant seat beside you, he bristled again as the bartender turned back towards you and flipped a coaster behind his back so that it landed on the counter immediately in front of you. With a wink and a flourish, he spun around and placed a brightly coloured glass of orange liquid on ice on top of it.

As Jim approached, he heard the guy say to you, “This is called a tequila sunrise. It definitely has enough alcohol in it to help you get relaxed, but it tastes mostly like orange juice. And I’ll give you an extra maraschino cherry, you look like you could use it.” Your soft laugh in response to the bartender’s low flirty tone made Hopper’s heart constrict tightly in his chest a little, but he kept his expression flat and composed.

“Tequila, hm?” Jim interrupted, sliding into the chair next to you quietly. You jumped in response to him, clearly not having seen him approach. While you didn’t look unhappy to see him, Hopper didn’t miss the way your cheeks flushed a bright red colour. Perhaps due to being caught in a such a flirty situation? Jim turned his eyes towards the guy behind the bar, who looked about as surprised as you were, and noticed that his name tag read “Dave” in thick black letters. “Sounds good to me. I’ll have the same, David. With lime and salt, hold the sunrise.” 

“Oh, Jim!” you exclaimed, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Your posture immediately corrected so you were sitting straight up in your chair, but you jumped forward in your seat as well when you realized that Jim had casually slung his arm around the back of yours. When his skin made contact with your bare back, your heart immediately leapt into your throat. His mouth curled a little at the way you automatically reacted to his presence, and when Dave awkwardly placed a shot glass in front of him, eyes darting between the two of you in an attempt to figure out what the relationship was. He couldn’t help but feel satisfied that he was being perceived as a threat.

“Dunno why you’re so surprised to see me, you’re the one who’s out of their element here,” he snorted. “This is practically my second home.” Your surprised look relaxes, and he can’t help but feel a little pleased when you settle back into your chair again.

“I know, it’s weird right? I don’t know what got into me tonight. Just wanted some company for a change, I guess.”

Hopper grunted, not missing the way you glanced nervously back at Dave, who was a couple steps away slicing a lime to go with his shot. Jim shifted in his chair, letting his eyes roam over you without saying anything for a few long moments. He didn’t like the sound of you looking for company, but he knew he held absolutely no right to say anything about that.

You nervously popped one of the cherries in your mouth, chewing slowly while you waited for him to respond. Hopper downed the shot without waiting for the lime and pointed to the glass when good ol’ Dave came back with the wedges of green fruit. Dave then lingered at the counter to see if you would say anything more to him, wiping absently at a spot on the wood, but Jim was pleased to see that your full attention was now fixated on him.

“…Am I interrupting?” Jim asked, hoping that his voice was coming out casually. He knew Dave was listening intently. Hopper couldn’t blame the kid for his interest in you, but he didn’t want to relinquish your attention now that he had it. “Or would it be alright if I kept you company?”

You stirred your drink with your remaining maraschino, spinning it around the rim of your glass, glancing at him shyly through your eyelashes the way you always do when you want to ask him for something, but you don’t want to put a request into words and inconvenience him. For a moment he’s nervous that you want to ask him to leave you be because Dave was proving to be such good company for you already, but the fear quickly melts away. You turn your body, so your knees touch the outside of his thigh gently and lay your hand over top of the one of his that holds his shot glass a little too tightly. His grip relaxes. Jim turns to look at you head on and is moderately surprised to find the intensity of your gaze meeting his.

You notice the way Jim’s eyes immediately jump away from yours. His jaw clenches slightly, and he exhales a nervous chuckle that he tries to pass off for simply clearing his throat. You’ve learned to read him fairly well, despite the fact that he seemed to want everyone he knows to stay an arm’s length away from him at all times. You watch as his gaze drifts down from your eyes, to your bright red lips, down to the hollow of your throat where you know there’s a small silver pendant hanging between your breasts. The tension is palpable in the air for a couple long seconds, before you finally lean in closer and capture his attention again.

“I would absolutely love it,” you murmured softly, your tone low, gentle, and intended for his ears only, “if you would keep me company tonight.”

o O o O o

After a couple minutes of chatter, the tension fades away just like it always does back at the office. You finish your tequila sunrise and order another, and Jim does a couple more shots, and the two of you sink into a comfortable place between tipsy and drunk that makes everything hilarious and fun. Dave moved from your corner of the counter to the opposite end, presumably to avoid some of the embarrassment of having to serve Jim after completely losing your attention to him (Jim assumes, with a smug sense of pride), and the two of you grow quite loud as the night goes on. There’s no sign of your exhausted posture from an hour ago, despite the fact that drinks usually make you so sleepy you can barely keep your eyes open at home.

“So, what’s this tequila sunrise thing all about? What, you can’t handle real tequila?” teases Jim, nudging into your shoulder with his. You gape at him for a moment at the insinuation that you’re not tough enough to handle your drinks and shove him back.

“I can too!” you say indignantly, too loudly; a couple of other patrons turn and look at the two of you, but they quickly return to their own conversations. People know how Jim Hopper feels about you, and no one would dream of interrupting your conversation even to tell you to lower your voices. “I just think that if I want to get drunk, why would I want to do it drinking a lot of something that tastes so awful?”

Jim guffaws. “Awful? Sweetheart, you must not be drinking it right. You can drink a glass of really good tequila on the rocks, sure, but if you’re drinking the cheap shit like this to get drunk? Shots are the way to go. Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to take a proper shot of tequila?” You shake your head. “It’s easy, sweetheart. Lick, shoot, suck.” He drops his tone for the last few words, enjoying the way you flush and look absolutely scandalized by his rasping voice in your ear. Jim immediately orders two more shots from the bartender, sliding one of them so it pushes your former tequila sunrise aside. You don’t move, waiting for him to show you what to do. “Haven’t you been paying attention to me at all?” he teases. “Watch me. I’ll teach you how to enjoy tequila.”

You bite your tongue hard to keep your lowered inhibitions from allowing you to admit you’ve been paying a great deal of attention to him, but mostly just to his mouth when he downs a shot and hisses at the bitter taste rather than the actual process.

His hand seizes yours from where it is resting on the counter and pulls it towards him so that your bare wrist is facing upwards and exposed to him. He simultaneously uses his other hand to pull your bar stool closer. You slide slightly towards him in your seat with a small squeak as you approach the edge. Without warning you at all, he licks the tender flesh of your wrist with his hot, flat tongue. The saliva left behind immediately cools to the air, and you feel a shiver race up all the way up the length of your spine. He grabs the nearby salt shaker and sprinkles a fair amount onto the stripe, and places a wedge of lime between your index finger and thumb. You raise an eyebrow at him, glancing between everything he’s put in front of you, and say nothing.

When you stay perfectly still, Jim leans in even closer, so close you can smell his smoky aftershave, and speaks in a husky voice. “It’s real simple, sweetheart. Just lick.” He adjusts his grip on your wrist, so he doesn’t have to twist your arm for access. Then he licks the freshly poured salt with the same precise, firm swipe of his tongue. Your chest flutters and your breath hitches at the feeling. His lips close against your soft skin into the ghost of a kiss, but it only lingers for the fraction of a second so you’re not even sure if you imagined the sensation or not. “Shoot.” He takes the glass and throws it back with a practised hand. He cups your hand in his and draws it up to his mouth, so he can bite the lime without breaking eye contact. He lets his tongue dart out swiftly against your purlicue to prevent the lime juice from dripping down your arm; you gasp out loud. He offers one last rasping word through the burn of the alcohol: “Suck.”

For another heartbeat, and then two, you take a moment to catch your breath. You’re not sure what has you so worked up, but you can already feel heat curling through your body. Maybe it was just the alcohol, or maybe it was the proximity… but either way, something was going straight to your head. His lips are wet. You resist the urge to lurch forward and bite them.

“Alright, got it,” you croak instead.

You quickly lick the same spot that Jim showed you a moment ago, watching him pointedly in case he wanted to offer you any critiques. Hopper said very little, though his eyes sparked with a kind of warmth you weren’t used to seeing there so openly. Half-lidded and warm, his gaze stayed trained to your every move with quiet interest. He made you feel like you were being studied, but you found that being his subject of interest didn’t make you feel particularly self-conscious. He picked up the little glass and held it out for you with one hand, leaning onto your bar stool with a flat palm while he waited for you to pour the salt. The hand he was leaning on grazed your bare leg where your dress had lifted against your thigh. Unconsciously, you spread your legs slightly to lean into the almost inconceivable contact. Jim notices, though, quickly shifting his hand to grip the chair between your legs and pulling it even closer so you were practically in his lap. You don’t say anything; you just delicately take the glass with your fingertips, lick the salt like he showed you, throw the shot back, and quickly bite into Jim’s lime to help with the burning sensation on your tongue as your coughing fit sets in.

“That’s not bad, for your first shot,” compliments Jim, his eyes searching yours… for what, you’re not sure. You’re dizzy. The alcohol is influencing you. The look in his eyes makes you feel like your body is on fire, as if you’re naked in front of him, and you just want him to put his hands on you. You want him to stop dancing around the subject, to accept that he wants you, and to realize that you’re only waiting for him to realize what you already know.

“…Please.”

“What, sweetheart?” murmurs Jim. Is he really that dense, or is he only teasing you? Sometimes you’re genuinely not sure. You spend hours together in his office, flirting and making passes at one another, and then suddenly the tension melts and he lets go of your gaze without make good on any of his promises. Not tonight.

“Please!” you say again, more fiercely. There are other people in the room, you’re fairly certain of that fact, but you can’t bring yourself to care about them. You wrap your warm fingers around Hopper’s wrist, the one that hasn’t budged from where it is still gripping the seat between your legs. You pull so that it dislodges his hand. Jim flexes his fingers immediately, but in the act of spreading his fingers he accidentally brushes them against your cunt. You lower your voice and use his body to block yours from sight of the rest of the room, guiding his hand higher. “Please, Jim, I want you… Please, please touch me.”

Even though he’s pretty sure that he is legitimately in shock, Hopper’s fingers press more firmly underneath your dress. He pushes against the fabric of your panties, firmly rubbing his thumb through the damp material. His movements are clumsy, but he gets his pressures just right. You let out the softest moan, obviously trying to keep your voice down, and suddenly Jim’s fingers are gone. He continues to support your weight, so you don’t collapse out of the chair, but the delicious pressure he was finally giving you disappears without a trace as suddenly as it was bestowed. You whimper, opening your mouth to protest, but your complaints were quickly swallowed by Jim’s mouth on yours. His tongue touches yours fleetingly, sending a jolt of electricity through your body straight to your core, coaxing yours to follow between his lips as well. You taste tequila and cigarettes, cupping his scruffy face with your fingers to keep him from pulling away from you again.

It’s only a matter of time, though, before you have to come up for air. Jim rests his forehead against your shoulder while the two of you catch your breath. Suddenly, the world seemingly unpauses around you. You’re hyper-aware of the numerous pairs of eyes that keep glancing towards you and whispering about how the Chief was finally making a move on his secretary.

“We should probably go,” you whisper against his lips, bleary but still wanting to avoid scandal. There will already be rumours about tonight circulating, and you knew that Hopper would care more about that in the morning, after he slept the alcohol off, even if he was too drunk to give a shit now. However, all Hopper does his hum into the kiss and gently trace his thumbs along your jawline. He can hear you, but he doesn’t want to process whatever you’re saying. He just wants to keep you close, to keep kissing you. You giggle when his fingers twirl the bits of loose hair that frame your face absentmindedly. “Jim? Jesus, Jim, how drunk are you?”

“M’not that drunk,” he replies quietly. “Just didn’t realize how long I was waitin’ for this is all. Don’t wanna stop now that I’m getting the sense you want me back.”  

“As if there was ever any doubt…” you murmur against his mouth. He shrugs and hums something about how you’re too pretty a sweet young thing for an old man like him.

Despite the fact that you know he’s full of shit about being drunk (you’re feeling foggy as it is and Hopper’s had more than twice what you have already), that’s still the most honest thing you’ve ever heard him say about his feelings for you. You reel backwards and look into his eyes, searching between them for some hint of that reliable joking tone he usually pulled when he said something that was too real, only to be met with an awkward lop-sided half grin.

But there’s no hint of nerves in his voice, and the sincere look in his eyes has you sliding out of your chair and pawing through your purse for enough money to cover both your tabs. You need to get him out of here before you give in to your desires and jump his bones. As you pulled away Jim’s hands clumsily fumbled to keep you close.

“Where do you think you’re goin’ now, sweetheart?” he asked, brows furrowed. He manages to catch his fingers around the fabric of your skirt, but it slips easily between his fingertips.

“We’re both way past tipsy. I’m taking you home before we both do something you’ll regret,” you say simply, slamming down a few bills on the counter and gesturing for the nearest bartender to collect. Dave ambled over to the counter and processed your transaction, and you were so engrossed in keeping track of Jim that you didn’t even notice his disappointed expression when you offered little more than a polite smile in his direction with a request for him to call you a cab.

A slow smirk spreads over Jim’s mouth. “Yeah? You gonna take me home?” He grabs a handful of your ass and squeezes, holding you against him. He swipes his tongue purposefully against your bottom lip as you swat him away. He simply grins goofily. “Alright then, gorgeous, take me home.”

“Don’t make it sound so dirty,” you replied, flushing from the scandalous lilt of his voice.

“Are you sayin’ it’s not gonna be dirty?” he asks you point blank.  He has the audacity to sound mildly disappointed.

You turn your eyes towards him as you pick the payphone up off the hook near the entrance, freezing in the process of fumbling for small change in your handbag off one arm. You chew your lip in contemplation, reveling in the way Jim’s gaze drops down to catch the movement.

“…Let’s just get you home,” you murmur, deftly avoiding the question. You turn around and cradle the phone closer against your cheek, focusing hard on the quiet voice of the operator amidst the continuing din of the bar. As you turned away you missed the way Jim’s lips slowly curved into a grin of mutual understanding. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to pursue this in your inebriated, but Drunk Jim was always braver than Sober Jim. Sober Jim could deal with Drunk Jim’s bad decisions in the morning.

As far as his bad decisions went, he was pretty sure that this was one he wouldn’t come to regret, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed! Do me a solid and smash that like lmao. Who doesn't love some good ol' fashioned plotless Jim Hopper content?


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